Pitt needs to focus on football

Now, and for seemingly the past 30 years, Pitt football has been largely irrelevant in the national picture.

Coming off of an disappointing loss to archrival Penn State, it feels that Pitt is in an endless cycle of mediocrity.

Recently, former Panther player George Feher made the point in the Mirror that Pitt should move on from playing at Heinz Field and build an on-campus stadium in Oakland.

While this would be an ideal situation, it simply isn’t feasible.

For starters, there isn’t any land in Oakland to build a stadium. Also, not too many colleges can claim that they share facilities with an NFL team. It’s a great recruiting tool.

Instead, in my opinion, Pitt never should have demolished Pitt Stadium. Sure, it was a dump, but it was Pitt’s dump, and the gameday experience there was tremendous.

Now, thanks to Steve Pederson’s idiotic decision to demolish it back in the late-1990s, Pitt is faced with struggling attendance, a poor gameday experience, and a mediocre on-field product, as was evident against Penn State.

In order to fix this, the athletic department’s No. 1 goal should be making Pitt football a priority.

On average, Pitt’s football program makes about $9 million more in revenue than the basketball program.

If new athletic director Heather Lyke ever wants the football team to be among the best again, she must focus her attention (and dollars) away from the basketball team and towards the moneymaker, the football team.

If she fails, Pitt football will continue to be a non-factor in college football.